The week before last, a friend with good taste (and a history of great invitations) asked me if I'd like to check out the Cezanne and Pissarro exhibition at the new Museum of Modern Art. Going in, we were cynical, as he remarked that pairing artists in the hopes of producing a blockbuster show seems to be a trend on its way to a cliche and I agreed. But then I was struck by the well-written introduction that framed the collected work from an intriguing perspective:
Like many of their contemporaries, [Cezanne and Pissarro] questioned the relevance of tradition in the modern era and sought alternatives to the government-sponsored and juried salons, which were dominated by allegorical and historical genre painting. They called for disbanding the art establishment and for a new artistic language, free from the bonds of convention.
The central narrative of the exhibition was a story of friendship between the two artists, whose styles evolved in often parallel but occasionally diametrically opposed ways. Much of the show was given over to comparisons between works created over a roughly two or three decade period. I liked the emerging pattern of brighted colors and more informal tableaux, especially when the same vibrant green shows up in apples on a table and then grassy meadows. Many nicely done still lifes are clustered together along with some etchings, giving way to landscapes and nature scenes like Cezanne's Turn in the Road (1881), which, in its departure from classical motifs, essentially represents the sort-of radical triumph of the mundane that heralded a new way of considering art and life.
Stylistic experiments and technical innovations are a central focus of the exhibition, with much of the accompanying text displayed with a significant work in the show, such as Pissarro's Orchard Cote Saint Denis at Pontise (1877), dedicated to analyzing his decision to paint with a dry, hard brush and create the subsequent dappled texture -- admittedly, quite striking. Mostly what I took away from the show was a deeper understanding of how artists can inspire and challenge each other to push the envelope in the best possible way.
Also, my friend, who studied in Paris and briefly at the Musee d'Orsay, explained that train stations and bridges appear so frequently in Modernist paintings because the Industrial Revolution and attendant advances in travel and transportation made the artist lifestyle that we think of -- semi-seclusion in a natural setting, going back and forth to and from the city -- possible and accessible to a whole new group of aspirants.
Afterwards, we had lunch at the museum's restaurant, The Modern, which was quite good. I had rare steak on a bed of spaetzle and warm spinach and a pleasantly earthy glass of Spanish red. He was off to travel for a month abroad, and I headed back to work, fully revived and refreshed as a result of that voo-doo that only exquisite art, stimulating conversation, and a delicious meal can do. True.
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